


In the New Beginning

by Angelina_Aintithenniel



Series: The Cottage at the End of the Lane [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Asexual Relationship, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hastur may or may not be stalking Crowley, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Snake Crowley (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), awkward marriage proposals, footnotes are fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-25 14:04:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19747249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelina_Aintithenniel/pseuds/Angelina_Aintithenniel
Summary: In which Aziraphale learns to actually sell books. Crowley can't stop seeing fire everywhere he looks. And, together, the angel and demon have to figure out how to live on their own side.OrIn the South Downs sits a cottage. It’s the type of cottage one would expect to find in East Sussex: small and homely and possessing a well-kept, if somewhat scruffy, garden. And while it always gives a pleasant, well lived-in feeling to passersby, an observant individual would note that it is only ever occupied on weekends and certain bank holidays. It would take a truly occult observer, however, to realize that it was, in fact, the home of an angel and a demon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes: I studied abroad at Oxford for a year (well, more like three terms) during college and ran around all of England that I could afford a coach or train to. I was actually planning on attending Edinburgh University for grad school, but then Brexit happened and I got married, so life kinda got in the way. Oh well. Hopefully this isn’t going to be completely off, but I am still an American with only a little experience of the UK so please excuse any errors (or tell me about them so I can fix it). 
> 
> I’m setting this somewhere between Brighton and Eastborne in East Sussex because it’s pretty and because I visited several different parts of the coast from Portsmouth over to Eastborne and at least can vaguely remember what it looks like. 
> 
> This will be a mix of book and TV cannon, with the big exception that I’m running with Adam restoring Aziraphale’s bookshop, but then filling it with first edition children’s books.
> 
> Please excuse me while I figure out footnotes.

Imagine this if you would: chalk cliffs rising above the sea, green rolling turf, low lying vegetation, the cry of seagulls, and a white cottage. Focus in on the white cottage with its slate roof and glistening window panes. It hadn’t been a particularly nice cottage last week. In fact, it had looked much the same as the other darkened brick cottages that dotted the lane. But this week it was a stunning white, with wisteria growing over the entryway and blackthorn bushes lining the property in place of a hedge. 

“It looks like a flipping storybook,” one of the nosey neighbors had hissed over their hedge to the retired couple that lived next door. “Got to wonder who’s the sort to hold with that type of _aesthetic_. Got to wonder.”

“I imagine it will be good for property values,” said the husband of the couple in the detached way of a polite gentleman who’d had his afternoon nap interrupted and just wanted to get back to it. 

The nosey neighbor humphed in answer before the sudden desire to sell their own cottage and move north seized hold of their mind and didn’t let go. They were gone by the time our story began. 

The cottage at the end of the lane certainly was idyllic enough to invite the scrutiny of its neighbors and ignite the wild imaginations of passersby. Despite the low murmur of debate surrounding who the new occupants would be, everyone was in agreement on one thing: excitement was on the horizon. They couldn’t believe how horrifyingly correct they were. 

Beneath the blackthorn bushes of the cottage at the end of the lane, a frog and a hare sat in the shade. Sitting wasn’t quite the word one would use if they were able to observe these creatures for more than a few seconds without realizing that they had left the stove on and needed to get home immediately. No, lurking was the word a keen observer might have used. 

“So this is it then?” asked the frog. 

“Yes,” the hare replied. 

“After everything they’ve done, they get a sodding cottage in the country?” the frog groused. 

The hare, in only the way a human can project onto an animal, shrugged. “Suppose so?”

“I want a blinking cottage,” the frog continued, sullen menace crowding its words. It hopped closer to the sunlight to get a better view. “It’s no fair.”

“Something has to be done,” agreed the hare. “That him then?”

The frog looked around to see the tires of a vintage car speeding down the lane, “that’s the flash bastard.” 

“Better get a move on then, lots to report,” the hare suggested. 

The hare and the frog melted into the ground. Or, at least, that’s what one would have imagined happened if they had been watching. The truth, as they say, is far more complicated. 

The owner of the vintage car rolled to a stop in the short drive, unfolding from the driver’s seat with an otherworldly grace. He was tall, and lean, and dressed in all black. And, he was a demon. The demon’s name was Crowley, or at least that’s what the boxes clutched in his arms were labeled.[1] But you probably already knew that.

Crowley the demon took a moment to observe the cottage sat at the end of the lane, set just far enough off from the rest of the neighborhood to give it some much needed privacy without actually being isolated. If he continued up the footpath that wound around the garden, the demon knew he would find the beautiful view of the sea that lay just beyond the hill. Such an idyllic location had cost a pretty penny, but it was hardly as expensive as a flat in Mayfair or a generously sized bookshop in Soho. Plus, both the angel and the demon had amassed a rather large collection of material goods over the millennia and it had only taken a few of the choice pieces Aziraphale had been willing to part with to afford the property and its quaint cottage. 

Crowley stopped to breathe in the sea air. It was true that his body didn’t require oxygen to function, much like his car didn’t require petrol, but the action was calming and the scent pleasant. This place would make a lovely home. With that, the demon sauntered inside.

He had moved in stages, mostly on weekends and holidays strung out over the past year, but the boxes currently stacked in the entryway were the last to make their way to the new summer home. The move had also forced the demon to liquidate a few of his own holdings. Mostly he had finally gotten rid of a storage unit full of rococo abominations [2] that had served as his fallback nest egg for the past two centuries and had consolidated several of his other valuable antiques[3] closer to his new home. In a final act of spite against Hell, he had unloaded a small cache of Nazi-looted art onto the front steps of the The National Gallery in the dead of the night; an act of goodwill that had left him terribly nauseous for the better part of a week. 

On the brighter side of things, his spring cleaning had yielded a small collection of Victorian tapestries that the demon just knew Aziraphale would love. The angel had adamantly disapproved of all Crowley’s suggestions for artworks and, in no uncertain terms, had banned the one sculpture that the demon owned indefinitely (or, in the angel’s words: “frankly, my dear, it’s both unsettling and rude. And I’d rather not stare at it day in and day out.”) Crowley was, of course, planning on how to sneak it into their home unnoticed, but that was a wile better left to another day. For now, the demon was content to play house with his angel. 

Most of Aziraphale’s things were already spread about the cottage in a haphazard manner. Tartan throw pillows clashed horribly against late Victorian furnishings, the few books the angel had managed to re-acquire dotted the end tables, and there was a small collection of mugs sitting on one of the built in shelves that Crowley recognized as a prank gift he had given the angel on the anniversary of their Arrangement several years ago. He smiled with something terrifyingly close to fondness before the demonic nature inside him caught the feeling and squashed it down. Firmly. 

Dragging a stack of heavy boxes with him, Crowley trudged into the adjoining kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks. For crying out loud, Aziraphale had changed it again. 

“Seriously, angel?” the demon questioned, waving his hand towards the kitchen at large. The cabinets changed from a light blue to a sleek white, the counters to black quartz, and the fixtures from copper to a stainless steel that practically gleamed in the sunlight. There, the demon thought to himself, that’s much better. 

It took the majority of the day for Crowley to finish unpacking and scattering his things about in a much neater manner than Aziraphale. He even moved some furnishings around to make room for his plants, complaining the entire time that the angel like things so claustrophobic.[4] When the demon finally declared the cottage good enough, he was pleasantly surprised to see that his efforts had opened the space up considerably and dispersed the ever-present dust that seemed to follow Aziraphale and his belongings wherever they happened to go. Natural light filtered in through the rooms beautifully, affording the ferns, flowers, and ivy scattered about the optimum growth conditions. Now they only had themselves to blame should they fail to live up to his expectations. 

“There,” Crowley surveyed his handiwork. The whole cottage was some horrible amalgamation of English country, late Victorian, and modern styles. And so completely them. He congratulated himself on an annoying job done well, “All settled.”

Elsewhere in the neighborhood, something changed. Busybodies furtively commented on it over hedges and in passing while the more reserved neighbors sighed in a vague sense of relief. Whoever they had been waiting for was here. The cottage at the end of the lane was occupied. 

But whatever had changed in the air passed Crowley by completely, leaving the demon to stalk his garden in oblivion. He spent the better part of the evening marking out plots for the garden and figuring out exactly what quality of soil he had to work with. The chalky earth that met his searching fingers was a disappointment. It would be difficult to grow adequate, much less verdant, plants without adding a good quality top soil and fertilizer or altering his plans for fruits and veggies. There was so much work to be done. Not to mention the weeds that would have to be terrorized out. But that was a task better left for another day.

When Crowley finally retreated indoors after the sun had sunk low on the horizon, he was surprised to find Aziraphale in the kitchen. The angel was bent over a pot on the stove and didn’t look up from his task when the demon sauntered in.

“I thought you weren’t coming down until tomorrow,” Crowley said. 

Aziraphale smiled to himself, tasting the sauce in his pot before adding another dash of herbs, “I decided to catch the evening train. Make a proper dinner.”

The demon looked over Aziraphale’s shoulder to see what the angel had planned for the evening meal. “Is that truffle risotto?” he hissed, forked tongue flicking out to taste the air. 

“Yes,” the angel answered as he gently pushed him away. “And it won’t be ready for another thirty minutes.”

“Fine,” Crowley huffed and disappeared into the cottage in search of something to occupy his attention. 

Dinner was delightful, as Aziraphale’s cooking almost always was.[5] The angel prattled on for nearly an hour about the complexity of _actually_ running a bookshop that sold things and the odd assortment of individuals who wanted to buy first edition children’s books. Crowley let him talk, content to sip a Grand Cru Burgundy and wait his turn. When Aziraphale wound down, the demon filled the space with his plans for the garden. It was an unusual display of domesticity for both of them, but neither wanted to break the spell of good food, good wine, and a new home. 

Eventually, Aziraphale rose to clear the table and Crowley stalked off to inspect his plants. Several were drooping after the trip from London, quaking in anticipation of his fury. The demon brandished his plant mister at a chlorotic staghorn fern and whispered in a soft voice that still managed to convey the danger said fern would find itself in if it didn’t shape up quickly. 

“For goodness sake,” the Aziraphale squawked from the kitchen. “Stop hissing at your plants and go to bed, you foul fiend.” 

Crowley was too tired to put up much more than a token argument - “they know what they did” - before reluctantly agreeing. Strictly speaking, he didn’t need to sleep. But, as has been previously established, he indulged in the habit now and again. It was only at the angel’s insistence, however, that Crowley developed a consistent sleep schedule. The few hours rest he got at night had slowly but surely leeched the stress of the end days away and now the demon was absolutely hopeless without at least three hours of sleep a night. 

The demon collapsed onto the fluffy duvet of their bed, toeing his shoes off and wiggling out of his socks before he gave up and willed the jumble of fabric away. Silk pajamas swaddled him instead and Crowley barely managed to crawl under the covers before exhaustion took him. He fell asleep to the sound of the sea and the call of birds. 

Something woke him in the dead of the night. Sitting up, the demon realized what had disturbed his sleep. Fire. Crowley was surrounded by an inferno. An undemonic thrill of panic welled up in him as he realized that he wasn’t in hell but instead in his bed at the cottage, staring up at the burning ceiling. 

The smell of burning plaster clung to his nostrils. The weight of the smoke threatened to smother him. The sound of the crackling flames overpowered any other noise around him, even his voice as he yelled out for his angel. Somehow, Crowley wrestled control of his body away from his shock and leapt out of bed. The sheets wrapped around his ankle as he launched himself at the door and tripped him up, bringing his whole body crashing into the scorching heat of the floorboards. Fabric tore beneath his frantic fingers and then he was free to race out of the room and down the stairs. The stairs gave way as he leapt down them, sending the demon tumbling head over heels into the floor below.

Crowley lay on the burning remnants of the sitting room rug, staring out at the curled body of Aziraphale. The angel lay his side with the main crossbeam crushing him into the floor and trapping the snarled remains of his wings beneath him. One side of his face had been burnt down to the muscle and the front of his prized coat smoldering. 

The whole room smelled of burning wood, and books, and feathers.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley shouted as his eyes snapped open. It took the demon a moment to realize that the plaster ceiling above him was not on fire and to hear the crash of the sea against the cliffs in the distance. Everything was still.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs a few seconds before the door to the bedroom flew open. Aziraphale stood in the doorway, framed by light eerily reminiscent of the halo that buzzed about him in the celestial plane. “Crowley?” he asked uncertainly when he saw the demon unharmed in his bed. 

Crowley blinked back at him, “angel?”

Aziraphale crossed the room to sit down on the edge of the bed. His gaze held Crowley’s until the demon looked away. “What happened, dearest?”

“Uh, nothing. Nothing,” Crowley replied. It must all have been a dream. He hadn’t had one of those before. “Not used to waking up somewhere new?” 

The angel, someone bless his soul, didn’t push at the obvious confusion. Instead, he kicked off his slippers and curled his legs beneath him on the bed. “Let there be light,” a small reading light flicked on and bathed the room in a warm glow. 

“Angel?” Crowley asked, confusion coloring his tone. 

“Go back to sleep, dear.” Aziraphale pointedly dodged the question. “I’m going to squeeze in a bit of light reading.” 

The demon, for once in his long life, did as he was told. He curled into the angel beside him, burying his face in a soft pillow, and let the sound of turning pages lull him back into a fretful slumber. 

When Crowley finally managed to roll out of bed the next day, it had long passed noon. The demon stretched luxuriously, basking in the soft bedding and the warm sunlight streaming through the window. He could feel Aziraphale on the periphery of his senses, but the spot next to him was empty. The demon suppressed a shudder at the memory of the previous night and swung to his feet. As he shuffled down the hall, the smell of a fry-up wafted through to him from the kitchen. It took a concerted effort not to flick his tongue out to taste the air. 

Crowley plodded into the kitchen to find Aziraphale busy preparing brunch, the cabinets blue again, and butcher block counters in place of the sleek quartz he had conjured up yesterday. With a vague wave of his hand, the demon willed them right again. 

“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale huffed, his knife dropping to clatter against the cutting board. “And while I was chopping vegetables!” 

But the angel didn’t miracle them back. Crowley smirked at the unspoken admission of defeat and put on the kettle. They ate together at the newly assembled breakfast nook, Aziraphale paging through a 19th century novel[6] and Crowley surfing the web. The silence that stretched between them was the comfortable one of old friends who had exhausted all topics of conversation and were content enough to exist in the other’s presence. It was a feeling both deeply familiar and completely foreign. Crowley had been a demon for the majority of his life, but this somehow reminded him of the Presence he had been created to know and then lost so many eons ago. That memory was quickly buried with a pang.

“I can hear you thinking all the way over here, dear boy,” Aziraphale commented without looking up from his book. “It’s not like you.”

Crowley could hear the question in the other’s statement and knew what he was asking, but he’d be damned if he gave the angel any cause to worry. “It’s nothing, angel. Just planning the new grow schedule for the vegetable garden,” he dodged the question expertly. Demons were, after all, masters of misdirection and manipulation. 

For his part, Aziraphale seemed reluctant to believe the lie. But he went back to his book a moment later and didn’t bother the demon again. Crowley finished his meal and left the dishes for the angel to sort out; never let it be said that he wasn’t petty. The demon slunk out the backdoor and into his garden. Might as well take his frustrations out on the weeds instead of stewing in it. So Crowley bent to the task, tearing weeds from the ground and into pieces with a terrible finality which promised the trembling dandelions that they were next. The sun climbed higher and higher into the sky until it was directly overhead. But Crowley ignored the heat pouring down from it and continued on ridding the garden of pests big and small. 

He ignored the frog that hopped up to sit on the garden bench. It was just an ordinary frog in his ordinary garden. Aziraphale was by his side and the world continued to turn on into eternity. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1Neat copperplate script announced: Crowley’s dishes, Crowley’s toiletries, Crowley’s secret safe that I wasn’t supposed to touch, Aziraphale’s knick-knacks found in Crowley’s living room.[return to text]  
> 2After one exceptionally drunken night some time in 1752, Crowley had acquired an exquisite dining set, several works of art, and a large grandfather clock. The furnishings had reminded him somewhat painfully of Aziraphale and when the demon had finally sobered up two days later, he paid to have everything shipped express to one of his caches just outside of Manchester. He’d made a point not to revisit that particular error for many, many years.[return to text]  
> 3 As a general rule, Crowley was not in the habit of keeping many physical pieces. The demon had wholehearted embraced the era of modern banking and much preferred to tie up his not inconsiderable wealth in several shrewd investments and long term stocks. That said, he still kept a small assortment of items from across the years. He was particularly proud - proud, not fond, because it was acceptable for a demon to be proud of his materialism but not sentimental. Which he wasn’t. At all - of the black knight armor and a collection of priceless pottery and mosaics which he had looted from Herculaneum several years after it’s untimely burial in 79 AD.[return to text]  
> 4 It is a little known fact that hell is made up of a labyrinth of passages instead of the traditional nine circles. This was not helped by the fact that, at Crowley’s prompting, it had adapted to corporate life over the last century and now was structured, more or less, into nine departments. And every one of those departments were overcrowded to the point of bursting. Which is why Crowley valued a clean and open space.[return to text]  
> 5 Not counting the brief stretch during World War 2 when rationing had forced the angel to forgo food almost entirely.[return to text]  
> 6 Jane Porter’s _The Scottish Chiefs_ , Aziraphale would have answered had Crowley asked him. He might even have launched into the merits of Romantic era literature and the debate over who authored the very first historical fiction. But Crowley didn’t ask, he never did anymore. This was mostly because the demon knew better by now. [return to text]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory Bentley chapter

The ride into London passed with The Beatles’ Seaside Rendezvous, Freddie Mercury’s voice filling the Bentley. Crowley drummed his fingers against the steering wheel as they sped up the A22 and merged onto the M25. Well, if you could call weaving around traffic and narrowly missing the divider merging. He flew down the motorway at top speed, ignoring Aziraphale’s protests. 

Blue lights flashed in his rearview mirror, but Crowley deftly dodged them by cutting in front of an ambulance, across three lanes of traffic, and swerving onto a convenient exit ramp. The lights faded into the distance. 

“Must you always do that?” Aziraphale asked tersely. 

Crowley smiled a bit peevishly as he turned to face the angel, “Oh, you know how it is.” 

They jerked to a stop outside of A.Z. Fell and Co. Antiquarian and Unique Books[1] and the angel staggered out, Crowley watched him disappear into his bookshop with something approaching longing before he was once again speeding through central London. He had hell to raise - er, heaven to blame - er, he had Things to do. The demon was one thing if not a persistent bastard who detested leaving loose ends where he could help it. And there was a job he needed to finish. 

Brexit hadn’t been his idea in the beginning, Crowley just happened to tune into the BBC one day to hear the news of the referendum. He’d been immediately intrigued. Clever little humans with their bumbling little governments. Fomenting discord among parliament had been as simple as sowing mistrust here and then and then sitting back and watching the humans take care of the rest. The whole thing had been ridiculously easy. What wasn’t easy, however, was attempting to get someone Downstairs to respond to his messages about the huge potential screwing up the European Union could cause. It turned out that Hell didn’t have a clue what the EU even was, much less how it worked. Trying to explain a supranational organization and how much havoc tipping it out of balance could cause to the higher ups Downstairs had been, not to put too fine a point on it, hell. It had taken some convincing before Lord Beelzebub conceded the demon’s point and had granted Crowley their directive to cause havoc in whatever way he saw fit. Technically, he didn’t have to complete this job now that he was a free agent and on humanity’s side, but it was just so much damn fun. And so the demon sped off for Westminster with a gleeful sense of purpose. 

* * *

Mr. Mittens the cat glared at the vintage car with indignation as it sped past him. He had been enjoying a circuit around the bins when the loud engine disturbed him. Today was supposed to be a good day for the cat. The butcher had left his trimmings at the edge of the table and Mr. Mittens had been fast enough to snag a good one before a knife came down on the space his tail had just occupied. And the deli across the street had a wonderful selection of chicken in their bin. He’d eaten to his heart’s content before grabbing a large piece to munch on later. Mr. Mittens had slinked away from the busy street overstuffed and hankering for a good nap in the sun. Which is why he didn’t jump fast enough out of the way of that speeding vintage car. 

The cat looked down at his old, bedraggled, and very squished body. “Meow,” he said. 

THAT’S THE WAY OF THINGS, I’M AFRAID said the voice of a dark robed figure. 

“Meow,” replied the cat in a way that clearly meant _drat, and I was looking forward to that nap too._

COME WITH ME the dark robed figure smiled. After all, it couldn’t do anything else. 

Mr. Mittens watched forlornly as a pigeon dragged off the bit of chicken he had been saving for later. “Meow.”

The dark robed figure picked up the memory of the cat, scratching between his ears with one bony digit. The twin stars in its empty sockets twinkled as they always did, but they weren’t unkind: Death had a soft spot for cats. THINK OF IT AS AN ETERNAL NAP.

And they faded into stars. 

* * *

There was a mountain hare outside of Crowley’s building when he returned home that evening. The demon stared at it in shock for a long moment before finally blinking behind his sunglasses. It was gone in that blink of an eye. Cautiously, he reached out with his senses. The whole street was awash with the permeating stench evil, but the demon wasn’t sure if it was from his own flat, the art forgers that lived on the second floor, or something else entirely. Crowley crept into his building carefully, one hand resting on the can of sage mace that Anathema had made for him. 

His apartment was empty save for a few cowering plants and his perimeter alarms silent. The demon didn’t breathe a sigh of relief, however, until he checked each of his wards individually. Paranoia wasn’t the best look on him, but it had gotten him through the last 6000 years largely unharmed. He found nothing out of the ordinary in any of his defences. It had just been some random wildlife then, nothing to worry about. Even if it was a full on mountain hare in central London. Probably someone’s pet, Crowley reasoned. After all, humans would keep anything as pets nowadays. 

Satisfied that nothing was waiting in the dark to ambush him, the demon fell into bed gratefully. It had been a long day of doing bad things. He’d inconvenienced several major players in that day’s vote, planted doubt in the right minds, and knocked out power in the middle of the televised vote. It had only taken the small effort of messing with the right links in the chain to wreak havoc on a global stage. And it had worked. All in all, he counted it a productive day. Crowley fell asleep with the self-satisfied smirk of one who knew exactly what they had done. 

He awoke mid-morning to the smell of smoke and the afterimage of fire. Crowley sat up in bed for several minutes while his mind wrestled down the beginnings of panic; this couldn’t be a coincidence. The dreams came at the same time that woodland creatures had started stalking him. He had never dreamed before and now it seemed that any time he closed his eyes for longer than 20 minutes, his sleep was invaded by what might have been a memory or what might turn out to be a promise. With a growing sense of unease, he climbed out of bed to thoroughly search the flat. Best to make sure that the hapless couple living in the flat below him hadn’t tried to cook again before he gave in to his renewed paranoia. The search turned up nothing and Crowley found himself dialing a familiar number before he even realized what his fingers where doing. He just needed to check. 

“A.Z. Fell and Co, how may I help you?” Aziraphale answered on the third ring. 

“Ah, angel,” Crowley kept his voice carefully relaxed at the sound of his friend’s perfectly unharmed voice. No fire there then, it had been a trick of his senses after all. “Just checking to see that we’re still on for sushi tonight.”

He could hear the sound of a small child wailing on the other end of the line before Aziraphale cut back in over it, “why wouldn’t we be? Can’t talk right now, I have something to sort out here, but I’ll see you tonight. Do take care.”

Crowley set his phone down in amusement, imagining his angel trying to deal with squalling youngsters who wanted nothing more than to put their sticky hands all over his books. One thing was for certain, the demon was going to get an earful about this at dinner that night. And he was right. 

* * *

The week in London passed quickly and Friday crept up sooner than Crowley was ready for it. He’d managed to pass a few days without any more sightings of odd animals or phantom fires and the demon was ready to write the whole thing off as the stress of the move and the promise of retribution that hung over both his and Aziraphale’s heads. The angel seemed to be of a similar mind when he clambered into the Bentley that evening after locking up his shop, a small stack of books bouncing by his side. He’d started to rebuild his old collection, but refused to keep them in the bookshop out of fear that someone would come after it again. One of the books in the stack emitted an uncomfortably holy aura as the angel settled them into the backseat. 

“What in the name of all that’s unholy have you dragged into my car this time?” Crowley asked, rubbing his temples against a rapidly forming headache. 

Aziraphale looked confused for a moment before realization dawned on his expressive face. “Oh! I got another copy of the ‘Bugger All This’ Bible. If it’s bothering you, we can turn around and drop it back at the bookshop.”

The demon looked dubiously at the books in the backseat, drifting into the oncoming lane as his eyes left the road. Aziraphale jerked the steering wheel back with a cry of “watch the road!” before Crowley wrestled the wheel from his grasp and straightened the Bentley back into its lane. 

“No,” the demon decided. His angel wanted the valuable books close at hand and after everything that had happened in the last year, Crowley was loathe to take that from him. “It’s fine.”

“What’s fine, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, still flustered. 

“The book,” Crowley clarified. “It’ll be fine.” 

They lapsed into silence as Crowley turned back onto the A22 and into the countryside. Beethoven’s ‘Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy’ guided their way. It promised to be a lovely evening, the sun shining brightly and a good breeze blowing through Crowley’s open window. The demon let his mind wander as rolling fields sped past, already looking forward to dinner and seeing just how miserably his plants were doing in his absence. Halfway through Ashden Forest, a storm gathered on the horizon. 

“I didn’t think rain was in the forecast,” Aziraphale commented, ignoring the fact that they lived in Southern England and that the local weatherman was a complete tosser. 

Crowley hummed noncommittally, peering out into the rapidly growing dimness. It reminded him of the night the world hadn’t ended and brought with it the phantom smell of fish. Rain started to fall, beginning as a light patter before falling heavier and faster. Something didn’t feel right. This whole rainstorm felt like it was rejecting the reality that was supposed to be there and substituting its own. And that’s because it was. 

A brief flash of lightning illuminated a lone figure standing in the middle of the road. Crowley stared at it. The figure stared back. Thunder crashed much closer than it should have and at the tail end of the rumble, Crowley heard the croak of a frog. 

“No,” he swore softly and jerked the wheel to the side. The Bentley shuddered as it swerved around the figure, mounted the verge on two wheels, and fishtailed back onto the road. When Crowley glanced in his rear-view mirror, whoever had been standing in the middle of the road was gone. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale reproached. “What on Earth are you doing?”

The demon didn’t answer; a horrible sense of dread was spreading through him as he realized that none of the other drivers had reacted to the figure and neither had Aziraphale. Crowley cursed and then blessed for good measure. Had this been an apparition meant only for him? It wouldn’t be the first time Hell decided to plant images directly into his mind if that was indeed the case. 

The Bentley’s tape deck sputtered, cutting in and out for a tense moment before blaring to life with the opening riff of ‘Under Pressure.’ Crowley glared at the offending knob and it clicked off under the force of his will. 

And then clicked on again. The tape screamed forward before rewinding itself and starting up again:

_Under pressure that burns a building down_

_Splits a family in two_

_Puts people on streets_

Overhead, the storm rolled on, dumping rain in great sheets that partially obscured his view. Because of this, he didn’t see the sign for the A272 until he was right on top of it. Crowley made a split-second decision and the Bentley’s tires verged of their original course. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, voice pitched with confusion. His hesitant smile fell almost as soon as it started, “This isn’t the way home.”

“I know.”

Beside Crowley, the angel sat upright and stiffened, eyes darting out to survey the road around them. Rain lashed the car as it slowly gained speed until it was racing down the road, carrying its occupants further and further away from the storm. 

It wasn’t until the rain had stopped, the clouds rolled back, and the evening sun shone down on the countryside once again that Crowley slowed. The demon checked over his left shoulder. Nothing. And over his right shoulder. Also nothing. Finally he glanced back to see the storm that had chased them for miles dissipate into sunshine. He relaxed marginally and stopped trying to choke the steering wheel with his white-knuckled grip.

Aziraphale seemed to sense his shift in mood and fidgeted in the passenger seat. “Will you please tell me what is going on?!” he demanded. 

Crowley glanced at the angel, taking in his tense posture and the pinched lines of worry at the corner of his eye. With a resigned sigh, the demon pulled over. 

“Do you trust me?” he asked the angel. 

Aziraphale considered this long and hard. Just as Crowley was preparing to hear something along the lines of ‘you’re a demon, it’s not in your nature to be trusted’, the angel gently took his hand. 

“Yes. And I think I have for a while now,” Aziraphale said, all earnest words and flowery sentiment. Crowley hadn’t been expecting that, but he’d run with it and deal with the fallout later. 

“Alright,” the demon deflated a bit as the words left him. “I’m not positive, but I think I saw Hastur back there. The storm out of nowhere is one of his signature moves.[2] Whatever we do, we cannot lead them to the cottage.” 

“You’re not certain?” 

“No,” Crowley growled in answer. “But I don’t want to risk it.”

Aziraphale regarded him for a minute before softening. He patted the hand still held in his own and squinted out the fogged up window, “why don’t we find someplace to stay tonight and head back tomorrow?” 

“Okay,” the demon agreed. 

“Whereabouts are we, anyway?” he asked, wiping the fog from the window to peer out at the road. 

“Somewhere just east of Portsmouth, I expect,” Crowley answered, his internal navigation system tingling with vague familiarity. 

“You might as well take me to see the Mary Rose while we’re here, my dear,” Aziraphale declared. It was amazing how he could make a request sound like a previously agreed upon plan. 

“Hmm. Yeah.” Crowley gave in without an argument. After all, it had been nearly five centuries since he had last seen the ship. A sense of deja-vu washed over him, “Wait, was that one of yours or one of mine?”

The angel thought for a moment before replying, “I think you sank it and I preserved it.” 

“Huh,” Crowley grunted and put the Bentley in gear. The two coasted off towards the docks for an unplanned but not unwelcome holiday. At least they were together and safe. For now, anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1A sign in the front window read in large font: Now Selling Children’s Books. Smaller, italic font below the first line declared: _Specially curated collection of traditional and modern stories._ A third line in bold font clashed below as it promised: **First and Limited Editions, Mint Condition.** None of these announcements mentioned that the curator had been an 11 year-old Antichrist.[return to text]  
> 2While Hastur wouldn’t know a book from a brick, even if it did hit him upside the head, he’d been tempting a certain Horace Walpole in 1763 and had inadvertently prompted the writer to revive the Gothic novel. It irked Crowley to the present day that the term ‘A dark and stormy night’ simply meant that a certain Duke of Hell had been bumbling around on Earth again. [return to text]


	3. Chapter 3

The cottage at the end of the lane sat among a carefully cultivated bramble of blackthorn bushes, which in turn sat in a field of mid-length grass that a wandering child might have called tall before an exasperated parent seized hold of their hand and dragged them away from the unknown wonders of nature. The grass swayed in the sea breeze, knocking together with a quiet  _ shush-shush  _ as the blades bent under salt stained air. And as far as mid-length patches of grass went, this one was perfectly average in every sense of the word. Which is why it was currently home to a frog and a mountain hare as they sat watch over the cottage on the other side of the bushes. Both creatures crouched low, exuding a field of mid-grade evil that extended up to the blackthorn and stopped, unable to penetrate the field of goodwill that coddled the cottage on all fronts. 

“It’s worse than we thought,” said the hare. 

The frog sitting beside it  _ glucked _ once in agreement, long tongue darting out to prod at a festering sore on its bulbous eye. “We continue with the plan.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Do not question the Adversary’s will!” the frog croaked, an echo of thunder driving the threat home. “There will be an intervention soon. We must wait until it has finished before we make our move.” 

“And we trust them to handle this?” 

“We are demons, we don’t trust any-” the frog broke off as a grasshopper jumped into the field of evil surrounding the pair. It eyed the insect critically for a second before a long tongue darted out and snapped it up with a resounding  _ crunch _ . 

The hare clucked disapprovingly, “do you have to do that?” 

“What?” the frog asked with all the airs and graces of one who wouldn’t know table manners even if it hit them upside the head.[1] It sucked down the grasshopper leg that still dangled from its mouth. 

“It’s disgusting,” the hare continued. “And unnecessary.” 

“But the crunchy ones always taste the best,” the frog complained sullenly under its breath. Well, as much as an animal that’s known for its distinctive voice could complain quietly, which is to say, not at all. 

“Oi, here he comes,” the hare warned. He faded from existence with a  _ pop _ . 

The frog looked at the place where the hare had just been and blinked twice before it too faded from view. 

* * *

Crowley stood in the center of his garden, surveying the strawberry patch with an overly critical eye. He had been sent to gather a few tomatoes and courgettes for dinner, but a strawberry plant that still refused to bear fruit distracted him from his destination. He hissed lowly at it.

“Really, my dear,” a kind voice spoke behind him, interrupting his planned tirade before he could even get a word out. “This is unnecessary. If you’re done asserting your dominance over nature, I still need those vegetables.” 

“Since you’re already out here, might as well pick out what you want,” Crowley huffed irritably. His gardening habits were his own business and he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone, even the angel.

Aziraphale bent to the task, mumbling quiet praises to the vegetable garden and ignoring the foul temper building in the demon behind him. “These will do nicely for dinner. Do you remember when we first tried tomatoes?”

Crowley knew it was an attempt to distract him, but answered anyway. “It was just after the Spanish Inquisition, when I had finally sobered up again.” 

Clutching the vegetables in both arms, the angel gently nudged Crowley towards the door with his shoulder. He hummed a long forgotten tune, clearly lost in the memory, “In that delightful little restaurant on the coast. They served a paella with tomatoes.” 

“And you swore it was the best thing since oysters,” Crowley finished the thought. “Yes, I remember.”

“Good, because I thought I might try to make it again now that your tomatoes are in season. If you’re amenable, of course.”

Crowley’s mouth watered at the idea, “I wouldn’t be opposed.”

Aziraphale smiled broadly at him, doing little to hide the fondness that bloomed on his face. Blinded by the angel’s smile, Crowley allowed himself to be steered into the kitchen and before he could fully process what was going on, there was cutting board full of vegetables in front of him.

“That was a dirty trick,” the demon growled without any heat behind his words. 

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “It worked didn’t it? Now, get chopping. I need those to finish dinner.” 

For the second time in his considerably long life, Crowley did what he was told without question. 

* * *

After dinner - and the inevitable food crash that came from eating Aziraphale’s food - they stumbled off to bed. It took ages for the angel to fall asleep and as soon as the first small, snuffling snores drifted up from the bundle of duvet next to him, Crowley sat up in bed. 

His bare feet scarcely made a sound as he slipped out from underneath the covers and into the slippers that his imagination assumed everyone out of bed at ungodly hours must own, and so he did. The nearly full moon overhead provided ample light as he crept through the cottage and out into the back garden, slippers fading from existence and into familiar snake skin boots. His destination was in sight. 

“You thought I forgot about you,” Crowley hissed to the unfortunate strawberry plant that had attracted his unwanted attention earlier that day. “No angel around to save you now.” 

With a trowel and clay pot in hand, he extracted the hapless plant from the mess of runners in the raised bed and scooped it out. Crowley stood tall in the moonlight, silhouette illuminated against the horizon as he held the strawberry up for the garden to see. “This is what happens to those who disappoint me,” he hissed. 

He wanted to yell at the plants, this was the first demonstration to the new lot of how things worked around here and that he was a demon to fear, but he didn’t dare wake Aziraphale. The low hiss that he was forced to resort to got the message across well enough, he thought smugly to himself as the rest of the garden shied away from him. Hips swaying from side to side, the demon swaggered out of the garden, strawberry plant held loosely in one hand, and made for the distant treeline. 

What Crowley did with the plants unfortunate enough to disappoint him was a matter of debate among several of the factions who knew him. Even Aziraphale wasn’t entirely certain what became of the poor buggers. 

However, one possibility was that the offending plant was carted off in the dead of the night to the nearest park or green space. There it would be violently ripped from its pot and forcibly planted into the new earth, an unfamiliar ecosystem lacking the lush soil and fertilizer it had grown accustomed to. And then Crowley would have looked down at it with a sneer and left without an explanation. 

The plant, shivering from terror and quite possibly a cold it had never felt before, would be left to its own devices. It hadn’t been destroyed at all, simply forced to live or die of its own accord.[2]

Or maybe Crowley just fed the unfortunate plants down the garbage disposal and called it a day. The world, dear reader, may never know. 

In any event, the demon returned from  _ whatever _ he had been doing in the forest to the scent of smoke. At first, he thought one of his neighbors had lit an unseasonably early fire in their grate, but as he got closer to the cottage, the smell became stronger. And then he saw the smoke on the horizon.

Abandoning any trace of composure, the demon dashed around the corner and down the lane. Great orange tongues of flames licked the horizon from the end of the lane. And in the center of the inferno, he could see the silhouette of his cottage.

Crowley stopped in his tracks and stared as the beginning of his new life went up in flames before a renewed sense of urgency compelled him onwards. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” the demon’s cursing punctuated his stride as he sprinted towards the cottage. 

“Aziraphale!” he yelled as soon as he was within hearing distance. The roar of the fire answered him. “Oh, not again! Aziraphale!”

The demon vaulted over the front gate and thundered up the walk, “Where are you, angel?!” 

He wrenched open the door, slamming to his knees as a wave of heat burst out to envelop him, “Aziraphale!”

The angel appeared around the corner in a tartan dressing gown a moment later. “For goodness sake, Crowley, you’ll wake the neighbors carrying on like that at this time of night!”

He stopped abruptly when he caught sight of the demon kneeling in the open doorway, one hand still trembling around the knob. “Oh my dear, whatever is the matter?”

“You? The cottage?” Crowley questioned and desperately looked about him. The inferno was gone and their home looked the same as ever in the dim illumination of the hall light. 

"What happened, Crowley?" Aziraphale hurried forward to help him up.

But the demon ignored his offered hand and staggered to unsteady feet, lurching forward to grab the angel by the shoulders. He squeezed in desperation. "You're alright? You're not dead?"

"Of course not!" Aziraphale answered emphatically. "I'm standing right in front of you quite safe and alive as ever."

Crowley didn't reply this time but fell forward to rest his forehead against the angel’s. A great shudder passed through him, shaking the demon's body like an autumn leaf in the wind. 

"Cr-crowley?" The angel stuttered. "Please, dearest, you're scaring me."

The demon jerked back at the statement and pushed his glasses higher up his nose. His guard was back in place. "I thought it was real that time," was the only answer he gave.

"What was real?" There was an edge of panic to Aziraphale's voice now that Crowley hadn't heard since Armageddon't. "What in God’s name has been going on with you, Crowley?"

"Is everything alright in there?" a new voice called out. Crowley craned his head around to see a man and a woman peering in at them. He released Aziraphale. The man outside spoke again, "It's only, we heard shouting."

“Nothing to see here,” the angel called out the door when he caught sight of the couple from down the lane standing outside their front gate. “You’re all going to return home with no memory of this.” 

He reached around Crowley to shut the door. With an arm pressed into the demon’s lower back, Aziraphale guided him to sit on the couch. Crowley immediately curled in on himself, looking for all the world like a snake coiled against danger. 

“What is going on?” Aziraphale repeated, sinking down beside his friend. “You’ve been on edge since we moved down here. Was this too soon?”

“No, no. It’s not that. Never that,” Crowley was quick to assure. “It’s just…”

The angel waited for him to continue the thought. When he didn’t he prompted, “just what?”

Crowley sucked in a harsh breath. His hands fidgeted with the tassel hanging off of one of Aziraphale’s tartan throw pillows, slender fingers absent-mindedly unravelling the threads. 

The angel gently took his hands away from their destruction. “Dearest?”

“I’ve been having dreams,” Crowley blurted out. “Almost every night now. And they’re always the same. Always fire.” His voice sounded far away. 

“Fire?” 

Silence fell over them. Crowley stared down at their clasped hands while the angel beside him waited patiently, but expectantly. Finally, the demon spoke again, “back when the world was ending and your bookshop was on fire, I tried to find you. And you were gone, I couldn’t feel you anywhere on this plane. I thought I’d lost you,”

“Oh,” Aziraphale’s voice was gentle and slightly lost. 

“Yeah,” Crowley’s eyes pinched closed in resignation.

“And you’ve never dreamed before?”

The demon shook his head, looking up at Aziraphale with wide eyes. “No. Never. At first, I thought it was just the stress of the move, but now I’m starting to see things, and Hastur, even when I’m awake. And I don’t know. Angel, I don’t know,” the demon’s hands fisted in his curls. “What if this is Hell coming after us? It wouldn’t be the first time they dropped a threat straight into my head.” 

“It’s okay, darling,” Aziraphale whispered, gently stroking the back of his hands. He carefully worked the demon’s fingers out of his tangle of hair before tucking the wild strands back behind one ear with a well-manicured hand. “Everything is okay. We’ll face whatever comes together.” 

Crowley clung to the feeling of the angel’s fingers trailing down his own. But the smell of smoke still clung to his nostrils and the afterimage of fire burned behind his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1Which was an unfortunate affair considering that both Aziraphale and Crowley had laid claim to the invention of the intricate customs surrounding fine dining etiquette and manner schools.[return to text]  
> 2Crowley denied quite vehemently to any and everyone who asked - not that anyone besides Aziraphale had been foolish enough to ask - that his treatment of his plants was not at all related to his own Fall. [return to text]


	4. Chapter 4

There was a frog on the windowsill of Crowley’s bedroom when he woke up that morning.[1] It took the demon’s mind several minutes to catch up with the fact that frogs weren’t supposed to be sitting outside of first-floor windows. 

He blinked at it. 

The frog blinked back. 

Crowley blinked again for good measure. It was gone. He shot up from the bed, throwing the covers back so ferociously that they ended up on the floor. The window flew open with a horrible scraping noise at the force of Crowley’s will. 

There was no frog in sight. 

“Figures it wouldn’t be the end of the world that makes me crack, but the peace after it,” the demon muttered mutinously to himself. The window closed abruptly behind him, panes rattling in protest. 

“Don’t give me that,” he hissed at it. The window had seen enough of the demon to know better and fell still with one last clatter. Crowley snorted in derision and swept from the room. 

The cottage felt empty in the absence of Aziraphale, too wide open and bright without the perennially homey atmosphere that the angel practically exuded. He’d reluctantly turned down Crowley’s temptation of a long weekend and caught the train into London first thing the previous morning, leaving the demon to his own wiles. Crowley had half a mind to follow him before the end of the work week; lounging around by himself had lost its appeal after the hallucination and/or message from hell (they still weren’t entirely certain which one it was) he’d suffered the previous week. But, he still had some shred of pride and it refused to metaphorically tuck tail and run. So Crowley filled his time with painting the spare room the human way[2] and finishing his garden, trying his best to ignore the frog that lingered at the periphery of his vision. It was gone every time he looked around anyway. 

* * *

The warm afternoon sun beat down on the bent figure of the demon, as he crouched over on open hole, carefully filling it with topsoil. Crowley straightened up with an audible crack of his knees. After several arguments, many threats of painful pruning, a sturdy trellis braced against the cottage wall, and a special rock-lined drainage system, the demon had finally managed to transplant the White Marseilles fig tree that had caught his eye at the local nursery. The plant quaked in its new soil as Crowley promised it doom and destruction should it fail him. If he wasn’t careful with all these new arrivals, the plants would start to get Ideas about putting a  leaf out of line. And that certainly wouldn’t do. 

While he was at it, the demon gave a good tongue lashing to an errant tomato that was growing out of order on the wire lattice he had built for it. The fruit ever so subtly squirmed back into position at the ferocity of the demon’s tirade. The lavender lining the backdoor caught his attention next and Crowley turned to its pale purple blooms. 

“Look at you, blooming perfectly. Unlike the rest of you sorry lot!” the demon’s voice raised until he was shouting at the garden. 

On the footpath winding up to the cliffs a man paused. He’d heard the muffled shouting and decided that the new neighbor was either crazy or the rumors of the cottage at the end of the lane being haunted were true. Either way, he  detoured quickly.

Crowley glared imperiously over his garden, surveying the pristine order. Satisfied that none of his new garden would dare to defy his will, the demon peeled his work gloves from his hands. That was when he saw it. Up on the chalk cliffs, a figure stood against the horizon, one arm raised towards him. Storm clouds gathered behind it. 

“Right,” Crowley grit his teeth against the anger that crashed down onto him. This was his home. No one messed with what was his. “That’s it.” 

The gardening gloves fell from his grasp to the flagstones below as Crowley leapt over the blackthorn bushes lining his property and sprinted up the footpath. The closer he got, the more certain he became that it was Hastur standing within cursing distance of his cottage. A bolt of lightning flashed down to illuminate the Duke of Hell’s lopsided smirk. His extended hand closed to point at Crowley with a dirt encrusted finger. Above, the storm roiled into a sickening promise. 

“What do you want?!” the demon yelled as he drew closer, half expecting the figure to disappear at any moment. 

Hastur gazed at him with a malevolent gleam in his eye, his arms spread wide at the sound of rolling thunder overhead. 

“Yeah.” Crowley snapped. “Enough with the theatrics and veiled threats. You lot have never been good at subtlety. I should know, I’m the one who gave the three-day workshop on it. And wasn't that a riot?!” 

Hastur didn’t say anything, but the wind twisted into a sound that might have been his name. The Duke of Hell stood in front of the other demon, large as life and yet not quite  _ real _ . Crowley blessed under his breath, hoping that he wasn’t seeing things again. 

“I know it’s you behind the dreams and hallucinations and I’ve got to say, this isn’t your normal style. Who’s put you up to this?” 

The apparition in front of him laughed, edges coalescing into something not quite solid, something that oozed. “You’ll never be free, Crowley. Never forget who you belong to, Crowley.” 

Crowley shifted his weight onto his back foot, ready to spring into action if need be. But Hastur stepped back, seeming to draw the other demon forward with him. 

“You belong to hell, Crawly,” Hastur’s gasping laugh echoed through the clifftops. He fell back and the storm swallowed him from view, seeming to swirl around the space he had just occupied. 

“No!” Crowley lunged after him, not entirely certain whether he wanted to catch the Duke of Hell or to prove to himself that this was real. 

The feeling of solid ground falling away into nothingness stopped his advance and Crowley caught himself in the nick of time. With his sense of up from down slamming into him like a solid reminder of just how far he had to fall, the demon teetered precariously on the edge of the cliff before his pinwheeling arms gave him the momentum he needed to stagger back. His wings fought to spring out from their containment, but the demon managed to squash them down with the acute awareness that he was still very exposed up on the cliffs for the world to see. 

He continued to stagger back until he was a safe distance from the edge and screamed. 

* * *

One of the occupants of 26 Seagull Way watched Crowley from the front window of her sitting room. “Well, I say!” she called out to the pile of yarn atop the chair opposite of her. 

A woman’s face emerged from the pile, old and care-worn. “What is it, dearie?” the woman asked as she squinted through spectacles at least two sizes too big for her narrow nose.

“That strange man is up on the cliffs yelling at something again,” the first replied. 

“And how do you know he’s yelling, Rose?” the spectacled woman asked, turning back to her knitting with a huff. 

“Well. Well,” Rose stopped to think for a minute, fingers pensively tapping a pattern into the windowsill. “I don’t really know, I suppose. But he is waving his arms around an awful lot.” 

“What else do you expect from a pansy?” the older woman continued primly, watching her needles dart aggressively around and through the scarf she was making. “I met his partner the other day; nice, sensible man. Not anything like that gangly one. They live over on Marble Lane.”

Rose rested her chin on her hand, watching as Crowley descended back down the hill in the distance. “Do they now?” 

Her bespectacled friend let the conversation drop and they lapsed into a silence honed over a lifetime together. But Rose knew that she was thinking of their own long, and often trying, marriage. 

It’s always best not to judge a book by it’s cover, or in this case, the knitter by her yarn. You never know what to expect.[3]

* * *

Crowley trudged down the cliff towards his cottage, wrapping his composure back around himself like he would a scarf to ward of the winter wind. So this is how hell wanted to play it? Drive him to discorporate himself or simply drive him mad, believing that they couldn’t directly kill him? He scoffed in disbelief, stopping long enough to retrieve his gloves from the path and put away his tools in their proper place. The task took longer than normal, but did wonders for his hands as they trembled with the aftershocks of anger. 

Suppressing the urge to glance back at the cliffs, Crowley disappeared into his cottage. He was stupid to think that he and Aziraphale could get away with this. Heaven and Hell would never let them alone, especially now that their little Arrangement had come to light. 

Crowley prowled around the cottage, trying to figure out what to do next. He had never been one for sport, always managing to miss the annual training exercises that the Department of Human Affairs had required for all field agents. As a result, his prowling was subpar compared to the likes of his fellow demons. But Crowley prowled the cottage nonetheless, stirring the houseplants into a frightened tizzy as he contemplated the best way forward. Storming Hell was right out, as was any kind of direct confrontation in which he wasn’t hiding behind a mister full of Holy Water and preferably a certain flaming sword. He briefly contemplated summoning and binding rituals before deciding that he wasn’t  _ that  _ kind of demon. Anyway, if he truly wanted to go that route, he knew an occultist who could take care of the dirty bits for him. 

The demon made it to nightfall before his desire to cut and run won out.

The bell to the bookshop tinkled merrily as Crowley let himself in. Light filtering underneath the closed door to the backroom told him where Aziraphale was still working, but the angel didn’t poke his head out to greet Crowley. Which was fine by the demon, who had something else entirely in mind. 

Crowley liberated a bottle of expensive rosé from the wine cupboard and snuck off to lounge on his preferred windowsill.[4] Pulling one knee up into his chest, the demon drank straight from the bottle as he watched the nightlife flit by outside. No one seemed to notice as he stared at them in the dark. It was probably better that way. When the bottle had been drained and the streets deserted, Crowley shifted to pull his other leg up, leaning into the window for support. Tonight he just wanted to sleep without the chance to dream. 

When Crowley woke, he found himself warm and more than a little bit numb. At first he was certain it was from sleeping in an odd place, and then he realised that he couldn’t actually feel his extremities. It took him a moment longer to realize that this was because he no longer had any extremities to feel. Crowley lifted his head from beneath one of his coils, tongue flicking out in surprise to find himself in this form. It wasn’t often that he decided to forgo his corporation and he had never slipped into his scales without meaning to. But here he was. 

The third thing that Crowley realized was that he hadn’t dreamed at all. 

“Well, this is a surprise,” a voice said before gentle fingers stroked along his spine. The demon knew both that scent and touch. “I thought you were staying the week at the cottage. Is everything alright?”

Crowley nodded as best he could, serpentine head twitching up and down. He rested it on Aziraphale’s outstretched hand for a moment before sliding off. A forked tongue flicked out curiously, tasting the scent of unfamiliar humans. He perked up to glance over Aziraphale’s shoulder, finally spying the young men standing at the counter, a collection of Roald Dahl books ready for purchase.[5] Neither had caught sight of him yet. 

“Everything’sssss fine, angel. Jussssst tickety-boo,” hissing intelligible words took An Effort, but Crowley enjoyed the mild horror it brought to the young couple at the register as they finally noticed there was a large red-bellied black snake coiled up on the sill and that it had spoken.[6] Aziraphale tutted in disapproval and glared without any real heat before turning to the young couple and explaining, “pardon that, someone has left a recording in here as a practical joke and I’m afraid I can’t seem to find it.”

Crowley would have been impressed with the lie had it not been for the tell-tale quaver in the angel’s voice. He was sure there was that perplexingly hesitant look on Aziraphale’s face as well; the one that clearly said ‘I need to explain this away but I don’t like lying’. 

Satisfied with a bad job well done, Crowley coiled into himself and went back to sleep. 

The next time the demon awoke, it was dark outside. He could just see out the front windows from his current perch. Which was different from when he was last awake. Huh, Crowley thought to himself, that was odd. Wherever he was, it certainly was warm. It took him much too long to realize that he was tucked into the folds of Aziraphale’s favorite wool dressing gown. His perch shifted beneath him before a hand came up to lazily stroke the scales on his head. 

“You sleep,” a voice above him coaxed. “We’ll go back to the cottage tomorrow.”

And he did. 

* * *

It was Saturday. Not just any old Saturday. No, this Saturday marked the end of the first year of the rest of eternity. 

And on this particular Saturday, two figures sat atop a cliff overlooking the crashing waves of the sea. You’ve probably already guessed who they were. 

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Aziraphale asked the demon beside him. 

It was nice, Crowley thought with the now familiar warmth of content. He looked over hopefully at the picnic basket, wondering if Aziraphale had packed any more tea sandwiches. The angel remained oblivious of his pointed looks and Crowley snickered into his wine glass, one hand snaking out to liberate the last of the food. Aziraphale slapped his hand away without looking. 

“Don’t pout, it doesn’t become you,” the angel scolded. 

With a flick of a forked tongue, Crowley lounged back on his elbows. He pretended not to see the exasperatedly fond look Aziraphale shot him. Life was once again good. The four days spent napping as a snake in Aziraphale’s bookshop had done him a world of good and the demon hadn’t dreamed in nearly a month. 

Beside Crowley, the angel shifted, reaching for something at the bottom of the basket. The demon was about to complain of the hypocrisy when Aziraphale cut him off. 

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to give you. Figured now was as perfect a time as any.”

“Hmm?” Crowley’s interest was definitely piqued. 

Aziraphale fumbled around the basket for a moment before withdrawing a small, black box and immediately dropping it. The angel muttered and retrieved the box before opening it. From where he was sitting, Crowley couldn’t see what was inside until Aziraphale turned it towards him and held it out. A silver ring shone in the sun from within the box, contrasted against black velvet. 

The angel couldn’t quite look him in the eye, “it’s for you, if you’ll have it.” 

“Are you asking me to marry you, angel?” Crowley hissed incredulously. 

Aziraphale flushed, pink dusting his checks all the way to his ears.[7] He looked down at the black velvet box in his hand for several seconds before replying. “I’m asking you to be my life partner. There doesn’t have to be a ceremony or even a formal arrangement. Just a tangible reminder of  _ our  _ side.”

Huh, well that was certainly not something that Crowley had been expecting. For what may have been the first time in his long life, the demon was speechless. He spluttered incoherently before regaining control of his tongue, but couldn’t quite keep the sibilant hiss from his words, “a promissssse ring, angel?” 

“In a way,” Aziraphale hummed, looking like he was beginning to regret the whole matter. 

Crowley managed to get over his surprise long enough to realize that the angel seated beside from him was starting to lose his nerve. He reached out to take the box from Aziraphale’s hands, admiring the simple silver band that it held. It was set with black stones that glistened in the sunlight. This was not something that he ever thought the angel would have picked out, but it matched the personality Crowley had carefully cultivated over the millennia. On the inside of the band, a small mobius strip had been engraved. The demon smirked at the subtle nod to their infinite nature, and in some ways, their infinite friendship. “Aziraphale, It’ssssss beautiful.”

“Oh. Good,” Aziraphale let the breath he had been holding out in a  _ woosh  _ of air. “I was starting to worry that I had read this all wrong.” 

“Ohhh, you’re an angel. I don’t think it’s actually possible for you to get it wrong,” Crowley’s said and his mind stretched back across the years to that first conversation atop the eastern wall of the Garden. 

Aziraphale laughed high and loud and Crowley knew that the angel was thinking of the same thing. They sat regarding each other for several minutes, the demon’s fingers stroking the soft velvet of the ring box and Aziraphale clearing up their dishes to give his hands something to do. 

“Well?” the angel asked after what felt like ages. “Aren’t you going to try it on?”

“What?” Crowley nearly dropped the box as he jerked back to the present moment. “Oh! Of course.” 

He wasn’t sure if it had been a minor miracle or not, but the ring fit exactly and felt delectably smooth against his finger. Before Aziraphale could comment on the fit, Crowley turned away to reach into the plane adjacent to their own reality for the linen pouch he stored there and drew it out. Even after several centuries, the bag still looked the same as the day he’d tricked its owner into parting with it. The familiar shape of a bronze ring could just be seen through the fabric’s loose weave. 

“What’s that?” Aziraphale asked when the demon held the pouch out to him. 

“It’s just a little something I picked up a few years ago.” Demons didn’t blush; so it was a good thing that Crowley had always been a terrible one. That was Free Will for you, introducing new and torturous ways to experience emotions every day.

Aziraphale slipped his own ring on, admiring the intricate pattern etched into metal. A funny look crossed his face as he turned it side to side, “My dear, this is Byzantine! How long have you had it?”

“Since the 6th century or thereabouts.”[8]

“It certainly is lovely,” the angel smiled in the warm and comfortable way that Crowley had come to expect over the years. It was almost as if the angel’s face had been made for that expression. And, in a way, Crowley realized that it had.

The demon leaned back onto the picnic blanket, tucking his hands behind his head as he watched the clouds dance in the sky above. It felt surreal to voice carefully unspoken feelings and equally as strange to have those feelings returned. Any more of this sharing and caring and he was going to lose his entire reputation. But that didn’t stop him from watching his newly minted life partner out of the corner of his eye or smiling internally when he saw the ring he had kept secret for 1500 years brazenly in the open air on his angel’s hand. Hell could call him a traitor and a sentimental fool all they liked, this was worth it. 

“So what now?” Crowley asked. 

“Now we ‘bask in the moment’ as the humans say.” 

The angel extracted several petit fours from their hiding place in the bottom of the picnic basket. Crowley watched him nibble away at the glazed treats, wondering how exactly Heaven didn’t realize what they were missing. A raindrop fell from the sky to splatter across the demon’s brow. 

“You’d better bask faster, I think it’s going to rain,” Crowley packed up the basket as he spoke, starting off for home without a backwards glance. 

As the angel and demon started the trek back to their cottage, the raindrops began to fall in earnest. It was the type of early summer rain that fell in big, cold drops, plinking down to earth in a gentle shower that promised more to come if those caught out in it didn’t immediately seek shelter. Crowley held a hand out, relishing the feel of cool water as it pattered down onto him. A hand found his outstretched one and plump fingers wiggled between his own. There was a disturbance in the air around him before Crowley’s view of the grey sky above was cut off by a heavenly white. This time he did glance over to see Aziraphale, one wing outstretched, smiling off at the horizon. With a small smile of his own, Crowley huddled closer into the warm down feathers and walked on. 

Had anyone looked up the hill at that moment, they would have seen two men walking hand in hand through the rain, one carrying a picnic basket and the other holding a large umbrella. Had they looked closer, the observer would have realized that the umbrella was, of all things, covered in feathers. And then they would have blinked and realized that there was somewhere they needed to be quite urgently. However, they would have left with a very distinct feeling. And that was the feeling of contentment after a long struggle, almost as if they had finally come home from a journey that had taken, well, forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1Around 10:30, for those curious.[return to text]  
> 2Which ended with the walls, most of the floor, and a good portion of Crowley covered in a lovely shade of pale yellow. It took him the better part of a day to figure out how to get the paint back off of the floorboards.[return to text]  
> 3Although, in this particular instance, a knitting needle to the knee might not come as a surprise.[return to text]  
> 4It had all his favorite qualities: lots of sun, ample opportunity to leer at pedestrians, and just enough room to curl up. The fact that he was only one wrong move from falling off only added to its charm.[return to text]  
> 5First editions, naturally. [return to text]  
> 6A rather unusual sight in west London giving that the species to whom Crowley bore a startling resemblance had settled quite successfully in Australia and never looked back.[return to text]  
> 7The demon had always considered that a frankly humorous and adorable look and had done everything in his power to elicit it on multiple occasions. [return to text]  
> 8He’d picked it up shortly before being reassigned north to take up the mantle as the Black Knight. At the time, it had simply been a small reminder of the Mediterranean. The street vendor who’d reluctantly parted with it hadn’t known who he’d been betting against at the time and afterwards wished dearly that he could forget. Crowley had been saving it for a special occasion ever since. Although at some point during the Elizabethan era, saving it for a special occasion turned into saving it for Aziraphale. It was probably for the best that Crowley told the angel none of this. [return to text]
> 
> **Additional notes: If there seems to be a few unresolved threads in this story, that's because this is part 1 of a 3 part series. Please stay tuned (or bookmark the series) for additional stories. The next one includes their wedding!**
> 
> **Thank you to everyone who had left kudos, commented, or bookmarked this story! I had a lot of fun writing it.**


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